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Upper West NYA adopts strategies to bridge gender inequality

By
Charles Chedar, GNA

Wa, May 13, GNA – The National Youth
Authority (NYA) in Upper West has inaugurated a network of young women who are
to be empowered to champion gender inequality issues and help remove barriers
to their active participation in decision-making process.

The Authority is working assiduously to
ensure continuous development and training of the youth as well as ensure
public education to overcome negative cultural practices undermining the growth
and progress of girls in the region.

It therefore initiated the youth-led group
to empower women and girls to muster courage and take active participation in
decision-making processes at the local and national levels of the society.

The Acting Upper West Regional Director of
NYA, Mr Archibald Donkoh, who was addressing several girls in Wa said it was
the determination of NYA to facilitate the process of addressing negative
cultural practices that impeded the progress of young women.

The event, which was on the theme: “Engaging
and empowering young women to champion issues that affected them,” was
organised by NYA in partnership with Plan International in the Upper West
Region.

Mr Donkoh said the youth authority strongly
believed development of young women could best be done through formation of
networks and training.

Ghana as a member of the United Nations (UN)
was enjoined to work towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs) which calls on member states to end poverty and ensure prosperity.

“The young women in this regard should be
well positioned to facilitate the attainment of the SDGs and the need for the
formation of this network,” Mr Donkoh said.

Mr Eric Ayaba, the Upper West Regional
Programme Unit Manager of Plan International Ghana said, “There are a lot of
issues preventing women from contributing their quota to the development of the
nation,” which he added an empowered network of girls would help address those
issues.

He appealed to stakeholders including
traditional leaders, and development partners to be on board and consider
gender perspectives in their work by engaging young women.

The Maalong Pognaa for Nandom Traditional
Area, Pognaa Cathy Bob-MilliarYelkabei, said there was the need to work towards
the empowerment of young women to effectively play their roles as partners to
men.

“Women should be assertive and not
aggressive in fighting for their rights to partnership with men and to
re-orient societies towards the reform that will begin to see as women and men
as equal partners,” she said.

She advised young women to be on their own
and avoid depending on men partners for living which usually resulted in
pre-marital and teenage pregnancies and eventually leading to falling standards
women education.

“We therefore need the collaboration of all
and sundry and more especially you the very young ones and future generation of
our adult society to work assiduously towards the upliftment of our women for
the betterment of our societies,” she added.